


One and the Same

by 0Locke



Category: Death Note
Genre: Angst and Feels, Contemplation, Heavy Angst, M/M, Religion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-09-02 02:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8648377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0Locke/pseuds/0Locke
Summary: L exchanges his thoughts more thoroughly with Kira, before his inevitable death.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I decided to re-watch Death Note for the first time in maybe... seven years? I don't know exactly, but I do remember how much I loved the dynamic between Light and L. But back then, I didn't know how to write fanfics, or even the existence of them as a matter of fact. Lol. These chapters are all going to be a little short and full of dialogue. Finally, these scenarios take place after the death of Higuchi but before L dies.
> 
> Anyway, let me know if you waant more. I'm pretty good at making my characters -in- character.

 

"What do you think about God, Ryuzaki?"

"God?" L rhetorically repeats with a spoonful of sugar in his mouth, although it was meant for the cup of coffee sitting just before his folded knees. "I don't recall you being such a spiritualist." He murmurs softly with the crystals of sugar dissolving on his tongue, letting the silverware clang against the tabletop.

"Well…with all the killings going on. Don't you think there may be some greater, all-knowing being casting judgement down upon his people?" Light asks innocently and his amber-shimmering eyes held tightly with his companion. The room dances with descending sunlight and the blinds leave perfectly symmetrical shadows on his features.

"I suppose." His agreement is half-hearted and finishes with a breathy sigh. "We could look at this as a judgement to those that defy all things that encompass goodness. But that's all this is—a judgement. I do believe in God, but whom we're dealing with is more twisted in his or her own predisposed ways."

"But if this new God does contain the qualities of a righteous one, does that mean he is another? Or one and the same?"

"Our God is not childish and does not retaliate to those that pose a threat. He or she knows there is nothing in existence that is comparable because he or she is God and there is only one God that we believe in. And by definition, claiming to be a second God goes against our principality of monotheism. There is no such thing as a second God. This God is certainly not _our_ God, Light Yagami."

From across the coffee table, Light crosses one leg over the other and his arms double over in skepticism. He decides to pick one word out of L's lengthy discourse. "Childish?"

"Yes." L avoids eye contact momentarily to place three dollops of sugar into his untouched coffee. " _This_ God is childish. He or she seems to believe that the world is beneath his or her own feet. We are all one and the same no matter the life lived."

"Even when this _false_ God wants to mend the world into something better? Even if this God wanted to sully himself—"

"I never said this God was a _he_ , Light." Light could see something brewing behind those dark eyes of his, then he is met with a smug smile. "Is this what you think then? Do you secretly worship _Kira_?"

"I never said that." Light sips his exclusively black coffee and swallows with a burning heavy lump crawling down his throat. He remains calm, and any other variation of himself should never be allowed into the public's eye—and certainly before L's eye. "In no way am I endorsing Kira, but we should appreciate the fact that crime rate has dropped forty-percent. He is doing good for the world. Maybe we should respect what the police force in the entirety of the world couldn't do?"

"Forgive me, Light, but I may have to ask you again."

 _Not this again_ , Light groans internally.

Maybe he did it to satisfy his own need to always be right? Maybe he never had any other leads? Or maybe he did it to provoke Light? Who knew.

"Are _you_ Kira?"

"No. I am _not_ Kira." The peace did not last long, and as a thorough act, he slams his palms against the mahogany, making the china rattle for a few moments. "How many times do I have to remind you?"

"A simple _no_ would have sufficed." L plucks his coffee cup handle and thinks for a second. Before its scolding heat could burn him, he sets it down and pours the creamy liquid onto the saucer and filling it almost to the brim.

Bewildered and a bit more calmed down, Light leans back onto his armrest. "What are you doing?"

"I'm cooling my coffee. Did you know that people once drank their coffee out of the saucer rather the cup itself?"

"No I didn't know that." Light is a bit stricken by how quickly L could switch the subject at hand.

"Would you like to try?"

"No thanks." His reply is short and reprimanding. "I just bought this shirt. Besides, we live in the twenty-first century. Not the eighteenth."

"With all the talking you like to do, I wouldn't want my tongue to burn."

He retorts at the irony of his accusation. "I talk a lot? After that speech you just gave me?"

L places the dip of the saucer onto his palm and slurps as soon as he knows it's cool enough to drink in larger mouthfuls. Light watches with amused eyes—with the eyes of _Kira_. His visualizing immersion had gone largely unnoticed until the sound of a name rings in his ears.

"Watari?"

Light hears his voice interrupt the tense silence, noting how his fingers strangely hold the cellphone by its edges. Always quite the strange guy.

Light hears the soft rumble of an elderly man's voice in response to the greeting.

"Do you know where we could buy a chocolate fountain? I think it would be splendid for our one year anniversary together. The task force deserves it, don't you think?"

Light lets out a sigh of relief after hearing what L had in mind at the time. That's right. His mind was always so deeply entrenched in thought that he held no doubt time would fly by as quickly as he could blink.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is about the interaction between Rem and L and it's more in depth with the wording switched around. And of course, a brooding Light in the background.
> 
> Let me know what you think!

"Shinigami **.** " L tucks the tip of a toothpick and plunges it into the softness of an apple crescent. The miniature fountain is coursing with warm, chocolate rivulets before his eager eyes.

It is about ten at night and normally, eating sweets would not be a good idea for a nutritionally balanced diet. However, it served two exceedingly satisfying purposes: L loved chocolate and it gave him the adrenaline rush he needed. L knew that at about ten, the rationality of normal human being would chip away and slowly, creativity would fill in its place. Creativity wouldn't help him. He needed to be level-headed while dealing with this never-ending case. It had to be at night when he mostly ate. Or day. Then again, he didn't have a smooth sleeping cycle to begin with.

"White thing. Where are you?" L continues, reaffirming the nonexistent spirit into existence. Rem isn't responding. He urges on with different names in a dreary voice. "God of death. Horribly disfi—"

"I am here." Rem's gritty voice emerges before her body could materialize. From beside the collection of desserts, what little evidence of her chalky white skin is strewn tightly against her bones. L had trouble accepting that this thing—this unholy beast—could persist before his very eyes. But she was there and if he could see it, then he _had_ to believe it.

"What do you want?"

"Do Gods of Death love apples?" L asks, mocking Kira's own words before the beast itself.

"I do not know." She replies sincerely, if this God of Death could have emotions.

"What if they were covered in chocolate?" 'Chocolate' is muffled by the sugary-coated fruit plopping in his mouth. He chews politely and lets her answer this secondly absurd question.

"We do not need to eat. What you call chocolate remains trivial with us and it does not tempt us to eat to any further extent."

"I see," he nods with a second apple slice speared by his toothpick. He continues with another thought that once sided in the depths of his mind. "I'm amazed by your grasp of the Japanese language. How is it that you know how to speak it? Do you know other languages?"

Chief Yagami, Matsuda, Aizawa, and Light all watch. Light watches calmly (as he'd known the existence of Shinigami long ago), but the former three all glare with their jaws drooping low. Only L seems to be making use of the chocolate fountain Watari provided for them.

"Yes." Its towering body is hunched over and mummified enough so that she doesn't move at all as she speaks. She seems more still if one were to snap a picture of her. Or is it a him? L assumes these Gods of Death assume gender identity, unlike _his_ God. "In our realm, there is nothing to preoccupy ourselves with other than writing in our Death Notes."

"So then you observe our world because you've nothing to do?"

"That is correct." Rem reaffirms with a low and uneventful voice. "We observe the happenings of your world. And when we observe, we learn things and we learn your languages. We Shinigami grow bored of our world."

From the sidelines, Light feels the beat in his chest thump more loudly, the more Rem spoke. If she were to—

"I see…" L murmurs. With knees huddling against his chest, he scrunches inwardly more toward the fountain and grabs maybe his fifth or sixth helping of sliced apple to dip in the delicacy. He grabs a napkin and lightly dabs at the corner of his lips, after crunching down on the sweetness. "Light. I need the Death Note."

Light, although reluctant, hands it over with a flop against the un obstructed, clean part of the table spread. L feels a pang of irritation from Light. He did it in a way in which a child doesn't want to give up something. Like it was _his_ toy.

"Light, why not indulge yourself?" L quickly interjects before he could take a step back. Watari went through the trouble of arranging this for their one year anniversary for the Kira task force, and no one had been making use of it.

"I don't like sweets." Light stands back further now, as a casual observer, and his hazelnut wisps of hair gently graze his eyelashes. "Was a chocolate fountain really necessary?"

"It certainly was and it is now." L nonchalantly plucks another toothpick from its assortment box and goes for the perfectly chopped strawberries. "This might be even more lovely," L raises the speared topless-strawberry to eyelevel and causally inspects it.

For someone who had such a gapingly large sweet tooth, he never seemed to smile about it. The juices, sweet and overwhelmingly sour, now mix with the warm chocolate softness on his tongue. Delicious. After his finishes swallowing, he wipes his fingers with another napkin and lifts the black note book with caution.

"The instructions are written in English." He states the obvious while inspecting the writing from both cover to end. "Is that the intention? We do not all speak Japanese. We do not all speak English—but—you gather most of the world does. Is this true?"

"It is. I did not decide this, however." The whites in her eyes are gleaming yellow like the story of werewolves Watari once read to him as a child.

"You don't?" L tucks a thumbnail under his incisors and questions whether her statement is true or false. "Then who does?"

"Just as you have presidents and leaders, we have our king. Our king governs our lives and our rules. Without these rules, we would cease to exist."

"So even all-mighty beings have a being even greater than them? Interesting…" L flips over the back cover and reads the inner inscription. This went against the principles of his own religion. "It says here that if the wielder does not write a name within thirteen days of its last use, then he or she will die. Is this true?"

L notices Rem's eyes flicker away from his for a moment and to greet someone else's, before returning to his again. "Yes, this is true."

"I see." L replies, while decidedly folding the book upward so that he didn't have to look at it anymore.

"L, I think we should quit it with the interrogation before we make her too mad." Light interrupts with the greatest possible intent in mind, his voice harmless and his glare reproachful.

"Rem is it?"

The Shinigami barely nods.

" _Rem_ does not mind. She has nothing else to do and I don't think she will mind my questions." L glances over his shoulder toward Light and gives him a reprising, ' _you have no control here_ ' look. He then glances over toward the Shinigami with raven locks hardly letting his eyes peek through. "Does she?"

"No. I do not mind."

"Excellent." L Reached for a glass of water and then plucked a sliced banana among the fruity-assortment. He dips in the coursing riven of chocolatey goodness. "Tell me Rem, do you refer to a human by their name?"

Light choked.

Damn.

_Damn_ him to Hell.

He seethes at the Shinigami who would probably refer to L by his real name. He never mentioned that his real-fake alias was Ryuzaki and that everyone on the task force referred him by that. L might suspect that Light is using her to get his real name and then she might accidentally call him by his real name and then—

Wait…

That was _exactly_ what he wanted. Wasn't it?

"Go on. Tell her your name," Light urges on with a goading voice. Light looks back to his father, Aizawa, and Matsuda with pleading eyes and a simple smile. "I think we should all familiarize ourselves with this creature before it kills us. Don't you all agree?"

His amber eyes finally reconnect with L's brooding ones with a triumphant smirk grazing at his lips.


	3. Chapter 3

Something engulfs his soul and body entirely and only his sense of awareness persists. His mind wanders through the crypt of darkness and he catches vague glimpses of bone remains—particularly human skulls.

_How strange._

He makes a voyage through the smoldering black and limitless grey until he notices the glowing silhouette of a rather large throne. This throne is a towering construction of human skulls sloppily shaped into a would-be seat for a king. But this is not what gathers his interest. It's the figure lingering above, as if it were meant to rightfully remain there for a thousand years.

As his mind, a moth, drifts further to the flame that this figure is, he notices strikingly similar features of someone he'd already known. Known too well. His mind reverberates with a name and repeats it more than comfortability would allow. Although L guesses the would be dream-king be _him_ , it is unclear and his features appear blotchy, as if one were to look at another through a wet window. The hazy image soon clears and he is now sure of himself.

Light Yagami.

The mental projection of Light Yagami seems to be lost off into this dreary playing field, although everything had been swarmed with darkness. Not only that, but he carries something vaguely familiar in his hand…. Is that a… a Death Note?

L grows wary of it. He has a creeping suspicion that this Death Note belongs to _him_ and not a Shinigami.

But if it were, would there not be one around?

Is he alone?

Or is there another?

It doesn't take long to answer these questions when he realizes something grotesquely bat-like had been levitating right behind this throne. At first glance he mistook it as a reflection of Rem, the Shinigami he first laid eyes on. It does appear rotten from the outside and certainly alive from the inside. It looks more human than Rem however, with protruding black wings and smoldering red eyes to watch over Kira's throne.

This _must_ be another Shinigami.

But if this were only a dream, how could his mind generate something so incomprehensible from the world he'd grown accustomed to? How could this thing exist when he had known anything _but_ it's existence? How could he have known how other Shinigami even looked like, if others _were_ to exist?

L suddenly becomes aware that this is _more_ than just a dream, but a premonition. Maybe God is telling him that this reality exists? Maybe this is his subconsciousness telling him that he had been right all along? Maybe there _is_ another Death Note?

Even in his dream, his mind races and his heart accelerates. It beats like a hammer pounding more than his body could handle, spurring him awake. His worn eyes widen and his hand clenches tightly against his chest, his cotton shirt scrunching like a flower.

He contemplates this _premonition_.

It floated behind him so menacingly. Maybe this God of Death was the original Kira? Maybe it was controlling Light all along and he would be the innocent student genius all along? What if he'd simply been lost in the tracks of misery?

What if…

That's enough.

L churns his stomach upward and lets his body hang over the ledge of his bed. His body hunches over and his elbows rest on the ball of each knee. "That's all the sleep I'm getting tonight. Isn't it?" He whispers aloud and rubs the sweat from his hairline. "Maybe that's all I deserve?"

He feels like breaking down.

He feels like letting everything go.

"Should I just end this here?"

"Should I go on?"

He hears the squeaky floorboards just a few more minutes of silent contemplation and gears his eyes toward the source.

Matsuda?

No.

This is…

Kira.

"Come to lull me asleep?" L chides and his eyes unconcerned with the intruder and instead, gleaming over the striations in the wooden panels. Jokes aside—it is the unpromising aura that he emits as he leans against the doorway. It makes him think Light came to strangle him to death.

"Do you talk in your sleep?" Light crosses his forearms as one side of his body holds all weight. His auburn-chestnut hair appear almost black in the dimmed room, gently kissing his cheeks. His nightly attire consisted of a colorless T-shirt and dark pants and Light is as barefoot as he is.

"Normally I keep my thoughts to myself." His voice is a low murmur and uncaring. "Obviously, you want to know what goes on in my head. Isn't that right?"

"I never said that." L needs not look him in the eyes to know he is rolling them. "We're all trying to sleep here. Might as well add a speaker to your bed post if you want to get any louder, Ryuzaki."

"I'm sorry." L looks him in the eye with half-lidded orbs and his voice his now hushed with careful heed to the rest of the members slumbering in this building. "Well, Light. If you've any other business here—I'd suggest you get going. Before the others wake as well."

As L's head is angled aside to greet Light amid the door frame, his mind materializes a demon from his dream floating right behind. Kira's personal demon. Or Kira himself? Is it here? Is it towering right over him? Is it wandering somewhere else just as Rem would always do?

"Tell me Light. Why is it you're still here?" He asks a few moments after Light ignored his indirect request. "We're done with Yotsuba case. You can resume whatever normal life you've lead on."

Light glares down at him—and even in broad darkness—L could see the change in the way he looked at him. These eyes looked like they've seen everything.

A now they look at him with detestation.

Like they've seen his death a thousand times over.

"Lead on?" Curiosity is swimming in his voice. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing at all." L almost struggles to get to his feet and strides casually over to his desk. He pulls out a note pad and begins scrawling on it, almost like a child wanting to show his parents something. "No need to be so defensive…Light Yagami." He sounds out his name slowly in phonetics.

L finishes writing as quickly one would pull a pen from its drawer. Light's interest is about as piqued it could ever get this late at night. His eyes try to wander over the note book from a veered-off angle, as he curiously makes way into the room now.

"What are y—"

With the notebook folded and its open face glaring right back at him, answering his unfinished question.

L could hear his heart beat quicken for just a moment there.

"Oh. You thought this was a real Death Note. Didn't you?"

His name is spelled out correctly.

Light's eyes bounce from his name to L's with confusion. "No. Why would I think that?"

"You thought I was going to use it." L's eye narrow with a scrutinizing look. "Didn't you?"

"I don't think any of us should _use_ it." Light counters with a morally responsive facial gesture. His voice is a mix between a low murmur and a defensive shout. "In my opinion, we should burn it before it gets into the wrong hands again!"

L smiles at that.

Wrong hands?

It already is.

"Tell me Light. When you write names in _your_ Death Note. Do you feel any remorse?" His fingers are unrelenting against the paper note-book, making it crinkle with unintended force. "Do you feel any sympathy for the thousands that you've killed?"

"Of course I feel remorse."

"Is that so?"

"If I _were_ Kira, Ryuzaki." He reiterates before the allegations ensue. "It's contextual."

"There's nothing contextual about it." His accusing retort sends the student genius into perplexity.

Light rips the notebook out of his hands and tosses it into a waste bin.

"You need to sleep." He doesn't make eye contact and looks for anything L kept his clothes in. He pulls the closet open and grasps a fist full of new clothes for his to wear. "Please change your clothes. Or take a shower—whichever order you do them in. I don't care."

L watches with slumped shoulders and a brooding scowl.

"If I'm going to listen to your accusations day and night, the least you can do is listen to me and take care of personal hygiene." He tosses them on the bed.

"And you change the subject as if it were nothing—"

"And you change to overdone topics as if I have no say in the matter." He interrupts mindlessly, keeping his back to those incredulous of his. "With all due respect, please remember that the rest of us value our sleep."

"I see…"

A few moments of unspoken words later.

"Goodnight Ryuzaki." Light finishes off with his hand on the door handle, churning it quietly.

"Goodnight." L murmurs softly. His body is mummified. He doesn't realize that he'd been staring at the face of a closed door long after the intruder had left. The deafening silence all but controls him until again, he echoes to no one with a solemn, "…goodnight."

* * *

**Let me know what you think! Your reviews really give me motivation :)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry for the long update. I had to re-watch Death Note to get me into the groove of writing this fanfic again. Anyway, I'm picking a scene from episode 24 and changing it around slightly. Hope you like, and don't be afraid to let me know what you think!

The sky was muggy and buzzing with endless raining bullets, not the best kind of weather to enjoy the day off. With nothing to entertain his thoughts at home, Light decided to visit headquarters, curiosity getting the better of him as always. He had to see how things are progressing and more importantly, what L had been up to. With a quick snatch of a cab, he’d made it to the task force within fifteen minutes. His shoes sputter into puddles and before making it to the entrance of his second home.  

_Ahh—there._

_Finally_.

Light makes shelter under its rigid awnings, the glass sliding doors sense his footsteps and glide open for the slightly soaked visitor. He composes himself entirely as the shining student that everyone _knows_ and _sees_.

The building is ghastly quiet. It’d always been too quiet here, as it’d only ever been occupied by a select few. That is—until Misa visited. The floor panels resound with each step like an echo. His copper eyes pierce through the glass from above. The sky remains a stagnant ocean of grey, he could almost feel the chill from inside these walls.

Ryuzaki needed to get the thermostat fixed, honestly. _What a cheapskate._

He could feel his memory slipping.

_Misa._

_Where are you?_

“Light—“ Chief Yagami bounces his head up from a glaring computer screen to the sight of his son. “Always the hard worker. Go home and let your mother and sister know you’re alive,” he says with a chastising voice, but the way he smiled made him proud to be his father.

“Really?” Light unfurls his beige pea-coat and lays it to rest on his chair and he gives his dad a quick reprimanding glare, “baking cakes and watching dramas?”

“Alright. You get a pass from me—if Ryuzaki says it’s alright.” His father sips from the plastic sip-hole of his sizzling coffee. “Can you at least let your mother know I’m alive too? Maybe ask her to make rice  dumplings and I’ll come on by to—”

“Got it.” Light casually rears the requests to the back of his head, hoping the messy matte of black hair would greet his sights soon.

Matsuda’s piercing voice interrupts Light in his plight for rest, which is then followed by a loud smack on the shoulder and an arm-coil around poor Light’s neck, bringing their heads unbearably close.  “Light wants to spend more time with L. Isn’t that right Light?”

“Oh, this again? You’re being ridiculous.” Light rears his neck out of the chokehold with a low hiss at the back of his throat, “don’t be a ridiculous person, Matsuda.”

“Ah Light come on—“ He snickers and his face contorts into something shrewd, of something who’d thought of a joke too clever for the genius himself. “Lighten up light.”

“How did you know? I’m a sucker for tasteless puns.”                   

Matsuda thought he was best-friend material because of their ‘slight age gap.’ Matsuda smiles and scratches his shaggy black mane.

 _Think again_.

For a way to get the pest to mind his own business, Light scours his mind.  “Matsuda, would you mind grabbing me tea? A cublet of sugar please? I can feel the caffeine withdrawal symptoms already.” With the fakest smile plastered on his face, the chest-nut haired investigator bares it.

“You got it. Chief you want anything?”

“I’m handled already. Thank you, Matsuda.” The chief absentmindedly responds with his eyes glued to the screen. The brightness from the computer screen shines in his lenses like a strobe of light.

As Matsuda finally makes his way out, Light settles in a swivel chair next to his father with a drawn-out exhale.

“Looks like it’s going to be another long day.” Aizawa reiterates with a sigh, caressing his temple. Light had almost forgot he was here. He appears to be reading a newspaper with a fervent grip and brows heavily furrowed.

“Oh—I thought you were on vacation, Aizawa.” Light manages an innocent voice.

“It wasn’t a vacation but—whatever.” His hands crinkle into the newspaper much more noticeably. Something made Light think that he hated him more than he hated Ryuzaki.

_You don’t realize how unimportant you are, do you?_

_Aizawa?_

Light let's the back of his head hang past the swivel’s backrest and closes his eyes. He remembers vaguely what _existed_ in the afterlife. A Shinigami once mentioned something about heaven and hell, or lack thereof? Was there a purgatory or a state of existence between the two? An alternate existence?

He hadn't been such a spiritualist before but the thought of the God itself compelled him wildly.

The thing is…he couldn't remember the Shinigami’s name.

Or why the idea of God was so appealing.

“Hey your girlfriend’s here, Light.” He could hear the deep rumble of Aizawa’s voice, followed by a crinkling thump of a newspaper against a countertop.

Looking for a blonde woman in one of the many splays of surveillance footages, Light finds her standing at the entrance with an umbrella overhead. Maintaining a composure similar to his behavior a few weeks ago, he flusters, “hey! She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Right. You know better than to keep a woman waiting.“

He nods, and makes way for his would-be savior. If he could call her _that_.

Light thanks Misa for the excuse to leave Aizawa, even for a few minutes.  Light reaches the front entrance with full intent on having _his_ memories revitalized. He deserved it. If Misa arrived any later than she had, he was sure he’d become a man with a naïve heart and naïve mind once again.

...

Coincidentally, as Light leaves, L enters.

Surely it would have gone dark?

Not exactly.

His hands are tucked in pockets and he looks for the missing grade-A student who always seemed to be in his sights.

“Where’s Yagami?” L murmurs with a nonchalant gaze around the headquarters.

“Here and also not here,” Aizawa mentions as he rummaged through police record files.

The chief scoffs at this joke, he had enough of them for one day. “He’s meeting with Miss Amane outside. Is there something wrong Ryuzaki?”

“Nothing really.” The hunched detective assumes his position on an open couch, with a soft served cone on hand. Watari always knew how to satisfy his sweet tooth even in simple flavors like vanilla, he’d have to thank him later. “It appears he has a date with our shining star.”

The screen showed the two chatting about and that’s _all_ it was. A motion-picture. He couldn’t hear them. But something in him is stirring—something unsettling. He wishes he could hear their conversation and went as far as to wishing that Light’s coat was tapped. Or Misa at least.

“Mister Yagami, I don’t want to be a nuisance to you—but can I ask you something?”

“Sure, anything.” He abruptly stands and tenses up, Ryuzaki being this particularly direct could mean he could be asked to do something out of the ordinary. He’s ready for it. But if it meant doing something behind his sons back, well he wasn’t so sure then.

There is a silent, scrutinizing pause that L does.  

“What is it Ryuzaki?” The chief feels his heart being strung tightly as he stares at him from aside. He seems to be inspecting his son down through the surveillance, without a notion of blinking or breaking attention.

“Why do you think these two only meet at certain times of the day? Light spends his free time helping me. Surely he could be doing other things with the love of his life?”

“Miss Amane has a busy schedule, it’s really not my place to judge how they do things.”

“Do they ever interact outside of this building?”

Then something hit the chief.

_Not this again._

“I’m not going to tail my son, if that’s what you’re asking!” He clenches his fist, something in his voice cracks, “the thought of investigating my own son again!”

“I’m not asking you to do anything to your son. Mister Yagami, I’m asking you to tell me if they ever see each other outside of these premises.” His voice is composed and consoling, compared to the chief.

The exchange between L and Chief Yagami seems to have caught Aizawa’s attention. “I could help, Ryuzaki. I’m always up to the job.”

“Thank you, Aizawa.” L sighs and licks at his soft serve. Some of it had already dripped onto this fingers and the couch.

“Forgive me for this Ryuzaki, but why are you reaching so far to convict my own son?” The chief bids desperately, after a few more moments of silence.

“I suppose it’s because I have nothing else.” The endless abyss of black in his eyes are resolute and licks at the vanilla again before continuing, “do you know of something called intuition, Mister Yagami?”

“Of course.”

“Well this _intuition_ tells me I’m seeing something else. Do you know how misleading images can be?”

“How is misleading if it’s staring you in the face?”

“That is when you must look deeper, Mister Yagami. There is something deeper going on between these two—“

“Ryuzaki, can we please end this? It’s just a date.”

“Yes. You’re right.” Ruzaki gives an approving nod to both Aizawa and the chief, “thank you for giving me your time. Go on with your usual tasks.”

The taut feeling in Chief Yagami’s chest does not lighten, it remains there for quite a while. After all, in Ryuzaki’s eyes, not only Misa but Light is a suspect to consider even if they’d been proved innocent. He and Aizawa return to their computer screens.

As L continues his surveillance, his eyes widen because for a second there, he was sure he’d seen something.

They embrace. L watches Light closely. Almost. From this angle, it almost looks like he’s whispering something in her ear, like it even mattered.

Death…note?

He mouths it experimentally.

The surveillance flickers slightly and a raw layer of static waves over it, then resumes its footage of the couple. The sheen from the footage glazes over his dark eyes. Tired and needing sleep, nevertheless, they are always watching and searching for answers.

“Light…I know you're hiding something.” L whispers into the crevice of his thumbnail, biting on it slightly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello my friends, I watched Death Note again in light (hah LIGHT) of the Netflix adaptation that came out last week. My God was that horrible. Rewatching Death Note got me in the mood again. 
> 
> Here we have a scenario where L has a second chance of life because Light used Death note eraser(that I wish was in the canon anime because I would revive L in a heartbeat lmao) to have a "last" conversation with him.

The man lies in a terrible and concocted sleep. With the gradual opening of his eyes, he could make out the silhouettes of generic hospital equipment and a motley of medications at his bedside.

_What is this?_

_Where am I?_

The pain in his chest throbs and it pounds more heavily with each beat and each movement as he tries to tug away at his arms. The bed is stale against his back and soon enough he concludes that his arms are chained to bedposts. His chest throbs and eases his breath to dull the pain.  He calls his mind to composure as he had done so in the past.

_Is this the afterlife?_

No. This is a hospital room. He remembered being in _this_ room—when Chief Yagami suffered a heart attack. A _heart attack_ …. Did he have a heart attack?

Lawliet groans and realizes that maybe this was his second chance at life. If he were in the hospital for treatment then there is no reason for him to be chained to the bed as if he were some prisoner. He was now at another’s expense. But of whom? Surely… not Kira?

_Kira…_

_Light Yagami is Kira. The true Kira._

_And I was right._

_I was always right._

The Kira who’d orchestrated many of the tribulations from the past year. From the misdeeds of Higuchi to the Kira who’d butted heads with the greatest detective in the world. He was the original.

He remembered looking at the man that held him in his deathbed ironically, and the way he looked down at him, that _vicious_ smile of triumph. He waited until the very last second to reveal his true intentions and did not hold back his excitement the moment he knew his enemy was to die.

Yet here he was, turning his head and twiddling his toes because his body had allowed him to. Because he was alive. And now he could recall every moment and experience with Light Yagami and how it had all been a cleverly devised plot.

 _There had been no greater being that had possessed you to do these things and commit these murders. You knowingly wrote those names and your Death Note and there had been no Shinigami you have succumbed to._ _Higuchi never would have gotten his hands on the Death note had you not lent it to him. And somehow you made it so you would get your hands on the notebook once all suspicions had been cleared._

“How _truly_ deceitful you are, Light…Yagami.”

These thoughts turn his mouth stone as he still leveled him as a worthy partner and friend. He did consider him as such, two of the greatest detectives alive and yet he had chosen the path of evil.

These are wasted thoughts now. L focuses on the sound of the insects chirring away outside. It could soothe his thoughts and coerce him into a logical thinking process, but soon he would lull himself back to sleep.

The slapping of book pages stirs him enough to wake from a dream. He notices someone is in the room.  And there he sits—Kira—mindlessly scouring through an intellectual magazine in the corner of the room. He looks up at him to meet his gaze.

“Oh—you’re awake. Good.” His voice is soothingly soft now and nothing short of polished verbiage. Kira knows he is aware of his identity yet he does not drop the pointless veneer.

“Why am I alive? Didn’t you write my name in your Death Note?” L murmurs under his breath. He realizes that this is Light’s doing—the chains on his arms. What does he plan to do with him?

He crosses his legs. “My Death Note? No.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“I am telling you the truth,” he pauses musingly and he folds the magazine within one hand. His russet eyes simply glare down at him but surely full of detest for him as much as he for Kira. He simply ignores L and his previous statement, “It wasn’t me that killed you. But instead—it was the Shinigami Rem.”

L swallows. He was killed. Was this Light’s world? Was he a God here? No. There must be an explanation for this.

“You coerced a Shinigami into killing me.” L pauses within wording tracts, “yet here I am.”

“Yet here you are,” Light reiterates and reveals a taunting smile. “And yes, to finally conclude it, you were right all along. I am, Kira.” He tosses the magazine away and unfurls his legs, leaning forward in his armrest. “Do you know how good it feels to say that? Now that I know you can’t do anything to convict—”

“By me simply being here would be enough to get you convicted.” L interjects as quickly as he could and narrows his eyes at the mass murderer, “is that what you told Naomi Misora when you killed her too?”

“And it felt glorious.” Light’s grin widens, “she worked with you on a case, didn’t she?”

L does not respond. The chirring of summertime insects fills the silence and the light of the sun slowly descends. The room appears coated in a hue of orange and warm yellows and it makes Light’s eyes appear more scarlet than they are brown.

Light snorts softly and continues. “She came close.”

“Did she?”

“Naomi Misora… she somehow concluded that her fiancé had come in contact with Kira. Her leads would have you chasing me in the most unfavorable of times, without a doubt. And a shrewd girl she was,” Light leans back into his seat and entwines his knuckles, “her apprehensive nature almost forced me to take alternative measures.”

 _Alternative measures?_ L reels back and wonders if Kira would physically assault a woman.

“Her curiosity had gotten the better of her.” Light looks L for a pondering moment, “as soon as I’d mentioned there might be a chance for her to work with you she practically groveled. It was entertaining really, the devotion she carries for you.”

“You took advantage of her.”

“I did. And what are you going to do about it?” A childish snarl on his lips. “In the end, she was—”

“Just another victim of yours.” L finishes off for him.

“She got… _in the way_.” Light claws his armrest, “Raye Penber got in the way. The police got in the way. _You,_ got in the way.”


End file.
